Victoria: Tropical rain event - March 19 to 23 2017

[hillybilly]

New thread for the approach trough which looks like bringing a tropical infeed rapidly south Sunday and Monday to impact all of Victoria. First showers likely later tomorrow, becoming widespread and locally heavy overnight and continuing throughout the day into Tuesday. Expected lots of thunderstorms with plenty of instability during the arvo, particularly Monday. Starts to clear towards the southeast on Wednesday.

Looks like we could well see humidity approach or exceed the current March records. Precipitable water values are forecast it approach 50mm on Monday (current Melbourne record is 47mm).

All progs showing good falls though differ a bit. Latest EC has 100mm for parts of southern Vic, while CMC has widespread 40 to 70mm. GFS a bit drier around 20 to 30mm.

[StratoBendigo]

EC seems to be settling down a bit now and reckons 30mm for us.

[Geoff]

Lots of unstable tropical air and huge moisture levels, but, where's the cold air incursion to make it all go "pop"?
I can't see any real cold air in the mix which makes me think we could see another huge fizzer down here, hope I'm being a twit.

[JasmineStorm]

EC keeps producing waves of water bombing attacks from Monday to early Wednesday morning with a grand finale drop Tuesday night near Ballarat, then Melbourne. It's similar numbers on multiple runs now.

[Sean]

I'll count on 5mm, so I won't be disappointed when I get 10.

[hillybilly]

Progs basically unchanged. EC and CMC showing widespread 50mm+ falls. GFS a bit less, mainly in the 20-40mm range.

ACCESS-R is wierdly patchy (tend to find it is better for not tropical rain here).

Have emptied the water tank with a last big garden watering and cleaned out the gutters so all ready for a flop

Lots of unstable tropical air and huge moisture levels, but, where's the cold air incursion to make it all go "pop"

With tropical system you don't need it. We have a decent upper trough approaching from the west which is providing the lift. The system is a warm one, but the upslide is sufficient for rain because the airmass is so humid.

[JasmineStorm]

All models now have Kyneton 25 to 50mm. Not bad 24 hours out from the start of the event. I'll take that right now. Last access run on BoM had some solid falls in western Victoria, spreading to central areas on Tuesday PM, which is line with the EC scenario. This looks game on to me

[stevco123]

My weather station is forecasting 60mm from Monday to Wednesday with 40mm on tuesday alone.

Looks like Monday night is when things really ramp up.

At this stage some places will easily get 100mm or more. Including the metro area.

[JasmineStorm]

Melbourne's bayside suburbs now developing a little 75mm to 100mm rain bullseye on GFS http://stormcast.com.au/raincast.html?o ... mel:nul#rc

Western and Northern troughs have a tonne of moisture feeding in and drifting nicely towards Victoria https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/w ... 41,-28.569

[StratoBendigo]

Moderately excited about this system. EC is most optimistic with 50mm for here. I'll believe it when I see it.

[Skywalker]

Preparing for a fizzer, the model over hyping has well & truly began.

Would be perfect timing if it actually comes off as we have just put a whole heaps of plants into the ground at both properties.

[93ben]

I'm hoping for the storms to arrive, but not sure if that will happen. Last weekend I decided to make the long trip from Melbourne to Eden, nsw and it paid off. Was heaps of storm activity up there compared to Victoria this whole season. It was a shame that Thursday never happened but the cloud cover that was there for basically the whole day, stopped it from happening. When I saw the rain in the morning, I knew they had the forecast all wrong!

[hillybilly]

Progs all lined up. Either going to be one of the best predictions a few days out, or the biggest fizzer since Halley's Commet

General 20 to 50mm across all the models with spots values above 100mm in most. Should start early hours tomorrow morning in the north and northeast then spread south during the days with showers, storm and rain areas. Whole system take nearly three days to move through so should spread the rain around and add up nicely. Be interesting to se if we can go into a period of cyclonic flow across the bay which is the set up which can really add up in central areas.

Pressure dropping steadily here and DP into the low teens.

Hot one today, thankfully the last one for a few days. Great pool weather, but things are really dry after a month or more without proper rain.

Btw tomorrow has the potential for some nasty big storms with heavy rain. Keep an eye out for the warnings.

[Tassiedave]

A late maximum of 27.8 degrees in Launceston today. at 4.25 pm. Average temperature for March 2017 so far is 26.4 degrees which is an amazing four degrees above average and is well above the January and February long term averages as well! Other notable temperatures in Tasmania today Campania 32.7, Hobart Airport 32.3, Ouse 32.1, Bushy Park 32.0, Hobart 31.7. Tassie looks like missing much of this moisture in this event and will probably just get the edge of it. If it drifts further south it could be rather wet on Tuesday.

[stevco123]

The way that i see it tomorrow is more storm based with heavy downpours like in Queensland. That's if you get under one. If not, then probably 2 to 10mm. Then i reckon it clears tomorrow night (which will be a shock to most) but really ramps up Tuesday morning and continues until late afternoon when it becomes patchy but still widespread (if that makes sense).

Tomorrow i think is one of those days where you either celebrate or curse the weather.

That's my prediction anyway.

[Geoff]

EC and GFS have both settled on around 50mm for us, most of it on Tuesday, which seems right to me as that's when the colder air interacts with the tropical infeed.
stevco123 is right I think about tomorrow being hit and miss with Queensland type downpours scattered around, with some folks missing out.
At least we're getting something exciting to blather on about for once, after weeks of mind numbing boredom!

[JasmineStorm]

33.3c today - incredible temp for Kyneton on March 19th.

Have switched into actual observation mode for tonight, to see what is going on. Sat Pic looks very promising....

Yarrawonga is currently 28c and its dew point has jumped to 19c at 9pm - nice....

The atmospheric river from north of Vic is a tropical fire hydrant - immense precip water levels pushing down for this time of year. http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/m ... anim=html5

[Jake Smethurst]

Have been holding this one close to my chest ... was waiting for the inevitable downgrades in the models to come, but alas, they haven't. In-fact I haven't seen models be this consistent in a long-time - GFS has had a 50mm bullseye across the Melbourne area for a number of days now (including in its 06z update). Other models have come into line for a couple of days as well, such as EC discussed above. Definitely thinking around 50mm here but higher falls not out of the question. This system oddly enough will favour the southern half mostly, and Tuesday will be the biggest day rain-wise.

Some shower and thunderstorm activity should develop from the north overnight before spreading southwards early tomorrow. As for storm activity, there is certainly potential for some big thunderstorms to get going into tomorrow afternoon - slow movement will mean flash flooding and large hail is also possible - but we'll need clear slots for the biggest chance of development to maximise the lifting mechanism, so hopefully that can happen as the afternoon progresses otherwise storm development will be minimalised. There's definitely an area of focus though, that area being the ranges just to the north of Melbourne and stretching west and east. Overall though, definitely thunderstorms about the place and loads of heavy showers at worst. And then of course Tuesday's areas of rain with locally heavy falls.

[StratoBendigo]

It's been raining on and off here for a couple of hours. And yet zero mm at airport AWS. Hopefully we get more than 25mm this week.

[hillybilly]

Looks all on target with progs basically unchanged. First rain inbound, and should be here by 7am. Few falls above 10mm already under this thundery rainband

Nice complex system which should spread the rain around. Been a long long wait for proper rain.

Btw really warm. Still 21C here at 6am. Seems Huey has forgotten about the approaching Equinox